NZ Offshore History
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Offshore - In the Beginning
Barry Thompson looks back at how offshore racing all started 44 years ago.
Offshore powerboat racing started in New Zealand in 1964 when a team of boating enthusiasts, lead by Tony Mason and Rex Henry, organised a race on Auckland Harbour. Unlike today events this was a true offshore race and all those who competed completed just one lap…. of 100 miles!
In fact there were two events, the tough one lap Atlantic 100 and the inshore Epiglass 40. Over 50 boats started a race that proved to be a challenge for all involved and with no true race boats on the scene, it was left to the family cabin boats and ski boats to do the business. Even the odd launch took part and whilst speed was a criteria, it was the combination of having the heaviest boat, using the least amount of fuel and the fastest speed that all culminated in points and an overall winner. These races were more about efficiency than speed and it wasn't until many years later that the speed factor eventually took over and this spelt the demise of the original format.
The Atlantic 100 was for boats over 16ft, which also saw some of the faster launches of the day, entered. The course was daunting, starting at the Auckland Harbour Bridge, with a long run down to Gannet Rock at the bottom end of Waiheke island, back to Rakino and then all the way to a turning mark in Bon Accord Harbour at Kawau Island before a straight run back home to finish under the bridge.
The Epiglass 40 was run in the more sheltered waters of the inner harbour with a course that saw multiple laps from the Harbour Bridge to St Heliers. This was designed to keep the crowd interested while the ‘big’ boats thrashed their way offshore and everyone waited to see who would round North Head first.
By the following year, the word was out and the 1965 event attracted 82 entries. The fastest boat around the 100-mile track that year was a 20ft Dave Marks designed cabin cruiser powered by a 165hp Interceptor inboard, and his averge speed? Just 25mph!
Within a few years the speed boys started to produce specialist boats and although the Auckland PBRO organisation didn't initially promote the specialist craft and made things a little difficult, in the end they had to give in.
Amongst the first to make their a name for themselves is the sport was Ivan Boyce in the Rex Henry designed Tara Too, arguably the first true offshore boat every built in New Zealand. Boats like Bill Stevenson’s Mystic Miss, a triple Mercury powered Plylite 26, followed this, as did Formula, John Meredith’s super quick triple rigged Formula 233 hull.
During this period monohulls dominated the sport, with the exception of the very radical Caracat, a twin hulled ‘caravan’ on water, which in fact won one of the roughest Atlantic 100s one year in the speed section. The first genuine offshore tunnel hull was Dave Lichtenstein’s Plylite Cat powered by twin Johnson Meteor V4 125hp outboards.
As the years went by more and more true offshore race boats started to appear and through the 1970s, Topaz and Camel Filter, 27ft monohulls designed and built by Jim McKay gave the sport a whole new look. Advertising restrictions meant sponsorship opportunities were limited on the boats and there was a maximum of 27ft in force.
With the establishment of the Northern Offshore Powerboat Club in the late 70s the sport took another positive turn with nothing but speed in mind. And then when Barry Ford arrived in the early 1980s with the first Cougar tunnel hull, he gave the sport of offshore a whole new direction.
Fourty Four years later and it is still as strong and exciting now as it was when the first cabin boats crashed and bashed their way around Auckland harbour, and while the boats may be more sophisticated these days, the competitors are just as determined today as they were in the ‘60s.
Barry Thompson started racing in 1971 in a D Class Neptune monohull powered by a Chrysler 85 and went on to be co-driver of Glen Urquhart’s Robson 23 cat, Sunday News, the World 4 Litre Champions in 1986. For the 2008 season he will be aboard Glen Urquhart’s, 10m Classic class monohull, Café Royale.
Barry Thompson
Editor - Pacific Motor Yacht Magazine
www.pacificmotoryacht.com
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